Note for non-Australian visitors

In Australia "Liberal" is Right-Wing Neo-Cons; economically liberal, socially repressive, tax the poor to subsidise the rich. Republican is also a good thing, as opposed to being a lackey of the British monarchy.

This is why you will never hear the truth from Australian media

Anyone in Australia who consumes media from more than one source, especially if that second opinion is not mainstream media, will know there is something very wrong with what we are being told is The News.

The News is not objective or neutral, it is not facts just waiting to be interpreted, it is not unfiltered. It is very, very biased, unbalanced, selectively reported, spun into orbit, character assassinations, and opinions of the rich and powerful masquerading as The News.

We are getting ads, we are getting propaganda, we are getting opinions, and those opinions are from a very narrow demographic, we are not being told the Truth.

Australia has one of the most concentrated media ownerships in the world, and the largest owner of print media in this country is a foreign billionaire – Rupert Murdoch. This leads to two outcomes: the media relentlessly pushing the agenda of one man, and there is no alternative voices heard.

Noam Chomsky has said “the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them“. The media exist to serve the needs of the 1%.

Those things that benefit the wealthy are transformed into “national interests”. Don’t believe me? Look at how quickly gambling in sport has become the true-blue past-time of the little Aussie Aspirationals.

More mines in national parks in In The National Interest. Funding public schools and hospitals is a luxury we cannot afford. Tighten those belts, someone has to pay off the debt on the nation’s credit card.

However, in order for us all to make the best decision for what is most appropriate in our own lives, (and not the lives of billionaires), we need access to information. That information does not need to be unbiased, as such, as long as there is an alternative, and we can evaluate for ourselves. Think.

In Australia, we no longer have an alternative viewpoint presented in the media. The country is unbalanced. And when something is unbalance, there is a good chance it will fall.

Newspapers are an advertising-and-opinion delivery system, which we happily pay for. Television is a narcotic, instilling fear and offering comfort, the modern equivalent of the Roman “bread and circuses”, cheer as the Gladiators are slaughtered, just give us our cheap fast-food. Radio is inducing us to hate and mistrust, convincing us all our problems are caused by “them” and then telling us the solution is to shop-shop-shop.

Stop believing what you know is right, stop asking questions, stop trusting, stop fighting for a better world, you know it will all just be so much easier if you just stop fighting and go with the flow.

Outsource your thinking to Rupert Murdoch. He cares for you. He knows what is best for you. Trust him.

Blame the poor, blame the unions, blame the refugees, blame the atheists, the communists, the vegetarians, the women, the children, the public school, the gangs, the unemployed, the young males of Middle Eastern Appearance… just whatever you do, do not blame the billionaires who design their own tax system and reap the windfalls of government creating policy for their benefit while minimising their tax.

You will never hear, read, see, something in the Australia media that is to the benefit of the poor or working classes. Or, even the Middle classes. People on low incomes are demonised, they are made the scapegoat for all that is wrong with this country, while major corporations are raking in the subsidise, it is the poor who are the cause of Everything That Is Wrong In Your Life. This is because no one in the media is on a low-income.

Rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people

Girlfriend left you? Blame the poor.

Got beat for a job by someone whose last name you can’t pronounce? Blame the poor.

The only way to solve all your problems and have a fabulously wonderful life, just like Gina and Rupert and James and Tom, is to Remove Julia Gillard.

Election Now! Now! Now!

Media in this country have been running a non-stop campaign against the ALP government since 2007. It is insidious, it is relentless, it is propaganda disguised as news. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been especially targeted, because unlike Kevin Rudd, she wouldn’t lay down and die.

Do we all remember when the ALP Government wanted to tender out its international broadcasting rights – Australia Network? Malcolm Turnbull does. Julia Gillard and Sen Stephen Conroy did not give Rupert Murdoch everything he wanted, despite Kevin Rudd barracking for Murdoch.

We all remember the catastrophic and chaotic tender process relating to the Australia Network. At the end of 2010, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the member for Griffith, announced a tender for a 10-year contract to provide the Australia Network—a really important part of Australia’s public diplomacy. As it turned out, there was a contest between the ABC, which, of course, had been providing the service in the previous five years, and Sky. When the first tender closed and it was considered by an independent committee established by DFAT, Sky apparently won the tender. This was not very satisfactory to the government, so they announced a variation to the tender and, in effect, had a retender. After that, Sky won it again, at which point the government abandoned the whole process because, they said, there were concerns about probity, leaks and so forth, and granted the contract to the ABC. It was a humiliating shambles and classic mismanagement on the part of the government.

You had—apparently—the foreign minister, the member for Griffith, arguing for Sky and the Prime Minister and Senator Conroy, the communications minister, arguing for the ABC. …
because the government did not get the result that at least part of it wanted—it seems the other part did want the result that was delivered—it aborted the tender and ended up having to pay, we understand, well over $2 million in damages and compensation to Sky
Source: here

Perhaps this explains so much of the anti-Gillard and anti-Conroy and pro-Rudd garbage coming out of News Limited and their little mini-me ABC.

So, what do we do?

Do we continue along and wishing and hoping and praying and dreaming that it will get better? Or do we get Mad As Hell and make a stand?

The issue is … whether we want to live in a free society or whether we want to live under what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalized, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction, while the educated masses goose-step on command and repeat the slogans they’re supposed to repeat and the society deteriorates at home. We end up serving as a mercenary enforcer state, hoping that others are going to pay us to smash up the world. Those are the choices. That’s the choice that you have to face. The answer to those questions is very much in the hands of people like you and me.
(Noam Chomsky, Media Control, 2002, p 65)

Now if only we had a media that could tell us the truth, too bad that only happens in fiction.

copyright post by Trevor Sharp and Janet Sharp, image by Penny Carter
reproducing this post without permission from TurnLeft or the authors constitutes theft, providing a link to the post does not equal permission
image of Rupert Murdoch has been transformed into a work of satire which should be allowed under copyright fair use

Name any topic – take Korea for example – nearly everything you have heard is propaganda, same with Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. Even 9/11. The ABC leads the way. But over here in the West we have ONE newspaper. Is it any wonder that people here vote conservative? Own the press own the people – as they say. I’ve said this all before elsewhere but its truer today than ever. It’s kinda understandable that the privately owned media will give us horseshit but for me the crimes of the ABC rate higher. They have become a pox on the body politic.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this problem. So many people are quick to point their fingers and blame almost anything. Unfortunately, most judgements are made with a disturbing lack of unbiased information.

Thank you for this article Leftie. I enjoyed it very much and agree wholeheartedly. It is now a decade or so since this household used a TV, and about 3 decades since newspapers were read. ABC news by radio is now as partisan as TV, so it is BBC I listen to.

You share the views I have held since youth, and you have a refreshing perspective.

Never have I read anything that rings so true. Beautifully succinct, this article touches on so many truths it’s frightening. This should be required reading for every Australian. However, the damage already done to democracy in this country (and is still being done), leads me to despair as to what future this country has now. The ills being visited upon us by the vested interests of the 1% cut so deep and so wide that I honestly can’t see how Australia will become the egalitarian society we all wish it could be.

Perfectly put! And we are in big trouble if these bastards get what they want…there will be no turning back.
They’ve trashed USA and Europe and now AUS is in their sights. They have done well…the unions are powerless, the poor and marginalised are vilified and the rich are controlling public opinion. Wake Up Australia!!

The conservatives have always needed the poor to be their scapegoats & to prop up their lifestyles by providing low-paid employees & staff. This is why they try to destroy any means the poorer classes have of bettering themselves by slashing education & health budgets to the bare bones. They also try to make sure tertiary education is mainly for the wealthy by making TAFE & university too expensive. Can’t have the lower class getting ideas above their station, cam we. Hmmph.

You’ll never see anything like this reported or explored in the MSM. Their bosses wouldn’t like it. Grr

All this needs to be said, and you have said it plainly and accurately. This is the way it is and I only hope that people respond to this call for sanity. For too long Australians have been manipulated by the media and an alternative should be found. Good Luck. All left wing followers should give this their full support.

Pleased to see that you are putting a turnleft2013 tag on your graphic manipulations. Somehow I don’t think that Fairfax, or Murdoch, will be using this one, like they did from Twitter. ;-))
Keep up the good work!